Piecemeal budget takes shape in New York via emergency spending bills

Albany, NY -- About 70 percent of the more than $135 billion budget had been approved in pieces through weekly emergency spending bills, rather than in the legally prescribed process of striking a total budget agreement. The budget was due April 1. Lawmakers say about $5 billion of a projected $9.2 billion deficit has been addressed.

So far, the 2010-11 budget includes:

• $302 million cut from aid and incentives to New York City, although lawmakers say a proposal could compensate for the loss by giving the city school district more money. Other cities would also see decreases as $15 million more is cut in the rest of the state.
• $17 million saved by merging the Homeland Security and Emergency Services departments and related emergency services and $111 million in other agency mergers.
• $17 million saved by suspending training of a new state police class for a second year, with savings by attrition and reassigning 90 troopers from schools.
• $4 million saved by delaying the extensive roof renovation at the Capitol.
• $78 million in new spending to better serve indigent defendants accused of crimes.
• $3 million spent to keep the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo, part of a decade-old deal.
• $25 million allocated to continue free MetroCards for New York City students.
• $7 million saved by closing the Lyon Mountain minimum security prison in Clinton County and the minimum security part of the Butler Correctional Facility in Wayne County. Two northern New York facilities — at Ogdensburg and Mineville —will remain open.
• A $1.60 per pack increase in the cigarette tax to $4.35, the nation’s highest. Chewing tobacco and most other tobacco products would also be taxed at 75 percent of the wholesale cost, up from 46 percent; snuff would be taxed at $2 per ounce, instead of 96 cents per ounce; and little cigars would be taxed like cigarettes.
• Trying to tax cigarettes sold by Indian tribes to non-Indians. State officials say that will comply with federal law, but tribal leaders say the taxation violates treaties and their sovereignty. A stamp would be placed on cigarettes showing the tax was paid and a portion of cigarettes estimated to be smoked by tribe members would be exempt from the tax. The tobacco actions would bring in $440 million.
• $327 million worth of cuts in programs for the mentally disabled and social services programs, including welfare. The Legislature reversed some proposed cuts in welfare aid and assistance for low-income elderly residents as well as in summer youth programs.
• $775 million in health care cuts. New York City area hospitals would see $250 million of the reductions. The cuts will hit hospitals, nursing homes and other health providers and programs statewide. The final cuts include $6 million for stem-cell research.